‘It was unbelievably skilled': Pope hails Brook after swashbuckling innings

Ollie Pope hailed the ability that the 'unbelievably skilled' Harry Brook possesses 'to flip a game' after the Yorkshireman's quickfire 99 helped England to sprint to a total only six runs short of India's first-innings 471 on day three at Headingley. With India reaching stumps on 90 for two the outcome of the first Test remains beautifully uncertain.
'Everyone knows what a fantastic player Harry is, and I think being able to put really skilled bowlers under that much pressure shows exactly the skills he has got,' Pope said. 'But it is not just slugging, it is very well thought out. The ability to kind of flip a game – we were saying: 'Oof, if he bats for another hour here we could be in an amazing position.' That just shows the kind of skill he's got, and power. It was unbelievably skilled.'
Brook fell in search of his hundredth run, hooking Prasidh Krishna straight to deep backward square leg to become the 14th Englishman to be dismissed on 99 in a Test, scored off 112 balls. But Pope insisted that for all his disappointment his teammate would not regret his choice of shot at that crucial moment. 'He was pretty gutted to get out but he plays that shot pretty well,' Pope said. 'I think he'd look to either keep it down or hit it for six next time.'
Brook had been dismissed off a no-ball before he had scored, and was also dropped on 46 and again on 82. 'I think fate had decided 99 for him,' said Jasprit Bumrah, who ended England's innings with a five‑fer but had also been responsible for the overstep that rescued Brook on Saturday evening.
'Not to take any credit from him, he played really well. He plays an aggressive style of cricket, but he can play an aggressive shot and sometimes he can shut up shop as well and try to negate if someone is bowling a good spell. You have to be really accurate and really clear in your plans here because if you are a little wayward run-scoring becomes very quick.
'So full credit to him, he played really well. We'll try to hopefully have better plans and try to negate his plans in the next innings.'
Pope stated that England's total showed that criticism of Ben Stokes's decision at the toss to put India in to bat had been wide of the mark. 'When you see a score like [India's] you think we should have batted first, but I don't think it was the wrong decision at all,' he said.
'We were good on day one and didn't get our rewards. On another day we might get a few more wickets. We know we've had some success chasing at this ground too, so it's easy to look at it and say, 'You've got to bat first,' but hopefully it will play out in our favour in the end.'
Late-innings runs might yet prove key, and while in their first innings India lost their last five wickets for 24, England's added 189. 'It's really important, especially in England where the ball gets softer and the pitch is probably playing at its best, so there are definitely runs to be had,' Pope said.
Sign up to The Spin
Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week's action
after newsletter promotion
'I think it was really important for us to get seven [six] runs behind – I think 40 or 50, just from a mindset, might have given them a bit more confidence.'
Bumrah insisted that his side had 'learned from that experience, and hopefully not make those mistakes in the second innings'. He admitted that the slope at Headingley – like the more famous one at Lord's – can be hard for visiting players to deal with, with occasional no-balls a symptom of their unease.
'Mostly in India we are used to playing on simple, flat grounds that are not slopey,' Bumrah said. 'One side is up, one side is down and it's a little tricky sometimes because you start from a place up high, then it goes steep, and then you go back up. So it can be difficult as a bowler to find rhythm.'

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Daily Mail​

5 hours ago

• Daily Mail​

'Exhilarating' Jofra Archer backed to make Test return after first County Championship outing in four years

Jofra Archer has been backed to make an immediate impact on his return to the England Test fold, with the fast bowler looking as dangerous as ever despite years of struggling with injuries. Archer played in his first County Championship match for four years on Sunday in a bid to prove his fitness for the second Test at Edgbaston, which starts a week on Wednesday. While there were few clues from his innings of 31 as Sussex reached 322 for nine on the opening day against Durham, Sussex bowling coach James Kirtley revealed Archer is up to full speed with the ball after a broken thumb. 'We came to practise here yesterday and it was a lively couple of overs he bowled there,' said the former England seamer. 'When I was taking the mitt it was exhilarating but it's not the most pleasurable of experiences. 'I wasn't any good with the bat so even giving myself 20 yards, it still keeps you on your toes. He had fun with it as well. Archer scored 31 runs off 34 deliveries as Sussex reached 322 for nine at the end of day one 'So the great thing is his pace is still there. He's not always bowled at the highest pace but he's capable of spells that are game-changing. That's what you look for. 'You want Jofra in an England team. He has an X-factor and he gives you that bit of pace England are looking for.' Archer has not played a Test since 2021 and Sussex have been getting him ready for the demands of red-ball cricket. Kirtley said: 'We've been managing getting his overs up, bowling back-to-back days, double spells, whatever it is that we need to do in terms of that back-to-bowling plan, but a lot of the time Jofra does it off his own back. 'He doesn't need managing as such, he gets on. He knows what he needs to do and that's a big sign that he wants to bowl in the Test series this summer and in the Ashes.'

Daily Mail​

6 hours ago

• Daily Mail​

Haunted Harry Brook treads the fine line between greatness and sporting tragedy, writes OLIVER HOLT

In the corridors of the stand above the Kirkstall Lane End, Stuart Broad managed a wry smile when I told him I was trying to find Michael Atherton to ask him about the time he was run out on 99 against Australia at Lord's in 1993. 'I'm sure he'd be delighted to be reminded about that again,' Broad said. Atherton is a reluctant expert on the subject. He was also dismissed for 99, caught and bowled by South Africa 's Brian McMillan, here at Headingley, in August 1994. Only he and MJK Smith, among England players, have achieved the unwanted distinction of twice being dismissed one run short in a Test. I tracked Atherton down in the end. He was sitting on the back row of the press box, welcoming Harry Brook in print to the list of unfortunates who have fallen one short of cricket's magic number. Atherton was phlegmatic. 'You are consumed by the one you missed rather than the 99 you scored,' he said. It will be like that for Brook, whose batting had lit up a grey, blustery third day of this first Test. His crestfallen, horrified visage when he pulled a short ball from Prasidh Krishna straight into the clutches of Shardul Thakur at deep backward square, dismissed one run adrift of his century, testified to that. Suddenly, it did not seem to matter that he had just played an innings of savage beauty, that he had smoked the India attack all around the ground, clubbing its bowlers into submission with 11 fours and two towering sixes, dragging England back into this match. All that mattered was that he was out for 99. His dismissal made him the 81st player dismissed for 99 in Test cricket, the 14th Englishman and the first anywhere for three years since Travis Head fell for Australia against the West Indies in Perth. Jonny Bairstow had been the last England player to meet that fate, trapped lbw against South Africa at Old Trafford in August 2017. Brook's removal, by such an obvious, familiar old bowling trap, was part of a pattern of England players giving away their wickets unwisely here, and was made worse by the fact Headingley is his home ground. Maybe the chance to score a Test century here in front of fans that adore him will come again to a player as prodigiously talented as he is. Maybe it won't. A century is such a random target in so many ways. And yet the difference between three figures and two bestows greatness on an innings and falling one short confers sporting tragedy upon it, as if it would have been better to have fallen far earlier than to have just missed the mark. But cricket loves numbers. It obsesses about them. Not just in its statistics and its averages but in its staging posts. They say 111, a Nelson, is unlucky because it resembles three stumps. The Australians regard 87 with unease because it is 13 short of a century. Zero is never good, either. Ninety-nine, though, is cricket's number of the beast. Perhaps it is also because it gives an opponent so much succour. It is almost better than getting someone out cheaply. Getting a batsman out for 99 is a cause for unrestrained glee in the ranks of the opposition. It is as if there is great sustenance to be had from feasting on a player's crushing disappointment. It is as if a humiliation has been visited upon the batsman, even though he has just spent several hours getting the better of a group of bowlers. It is wrapped up in the idea that when the prize that is coveted so much was there for the taking, the batsman lost his nerve and showed weakness. Some find dark humour in the unfortunate's fate. When Shane Warne slog-swept a ball from Daniel Vettori into the air and into the hands of Mark Richardson at the WACA in 2001, Richardson bowed theatrically to the crowd and Ricky Ponting admitted some of the Aussies were 'laughing into their lockers'. Warne never did score a Test century. It is too early for Brook to see the light side of what happened at Headingley, though he may reflect that things could have been worse. It seemed briefly on Saturday that he had been caught in the deep for a duck before it became clear the umpire had ruled Jasprit Bumrah's delivery a no-ball. He rode his luck on Sunday, too. He was dropped twice. His aberration on 99 levelled things up, though Brook may not have thought of it that way as India's players rushed to congratulate Krishna and Thakur sprinted in from the boundary to join the celebrations. Brook's face was a mask of incredulity at the shot he had just played. He had watched the ball, first with trepidation and then despair, as he tracked its flight. When the catch was taken, he looked as if he could barely walk back to the pavilion. It is probably cricket's longest walk, the walk of the man dismissed for 99, and Brook's seemed to last an eternity. The word 'trudge' was made for Brook's walk. He looked like the embarrassed duck that Australian broadcasters flash up when a batsman is dismissed without scoring. At one point he even dropped his bat as he walked, as if he were losing his senses. Rishabh Pant, India's wicketkeeper, gave him a consoling pat as he ran to join his team-mates but Brook did not notice. Brydon Carse, the next batsman in, crossed with him near the boundary rope and half put an arm round him in consolation. Brook did not notice that, either. He is in the club now, like it or not. Clem Hill, the first man to be dismissed for 99 in a Test against England at Melbourne in 1902, scored 98 and 97 in the next Test at Adelaide. Good for the average, good for the team, but poison to that pursuit of three figures that consumes Brook and every batsman who has followed Hill to the crease since.

Times

6 hours ago

• Times

Tale of two games: one when Jasprit Bumrah was bowling, one when he wasn't

Crowds typically turn up to watch batsmen rather than bowlers, but they definitely make an exception for Jasprit Bumrah. When he has ball in hand, people stop to savour the sight of something extraordinary — just as they once did when Shane Warne was conjuring his magic, and as they still do when Mark Wood sprints in to hit speeds few bowlers have matched. Such entertainers turn cricket into pure theatre. Every ball is an event. Bumrah bowled seven spells during England's first innings, all down the hill from the Kirkstall Lane End and every one of them containing incident. He took five wickets, had each of the top three scorers — Ollie Pope, Harry Brook and Ben Duckett — put down by slip or gully fielders at a combined cost to his side of 110 runs, and also had Brook, who went on to make 99, caught off a no ball before he had scored. The genuine boundaries that were struck off him, as opposed to those that came off the edge, were so rare as to stick in the memory, the best of them when Brook came down the track to slap him disdainfully over extra cover in the manner of Kevin Pietersen in his pomp. There were two games going on: one when Bumrah was bowling, and one when he was not. Whereas Bumrah took five for 83 at an economy rate of 3.36 runs per over, India's other three seamers between them returned figures of five for 288 at a rate of 5.43 per over. No secret which game England's batsmen preferred. Like Warne, Bumrah has a habit of exploiting the passages of play that others neglect. With Saturday's final session extended to 7.15pm because of a rain break earlier in the day, Indian thoughts naturally drifted towards the close, and a chance to regroup overnight. Not Bumrah. He returned for a two-over burst and not only removed England's most prized player, Joe Root, but during an electric final over consisting of nine balls as he pushed the limits and strove for additional pace, he induced Brook into flapping at a short ball that was caught by the diving Mohammed Siraj, only for it to transpire that Bumrah had overstepped. Furious, Bumrah unleashed one of his finest yorkers, which Brook somehow managed to dig out before finishing the day with a ferocious bouncer that lifted Brook off his feet. Every ball is an event, but every ball is also an opportunity, however late in the day. If some people had headed for the exit by this juncture on what had been a swelteringly hot day, there were still plenty in their seats who relished the drama. In its way, the bouncer to Brook was every bit as spellbinding as Bumrah exploding Ollie Pope's stumps with a yorker in Visakhapatnam last year. Bumrah's methods are not only unique but of a sort that make life very difficult for batsmen trained to look for familiar cues, which with him are frustratingly absent. He does not run up in a conventional manner, ambling in over several yards at what is little more than a brisk walk, nor deliver the ball conventionally, a lot of the work being done by a braced front leg, a snap of the wrist and a late release. Please enable cookies and other technologies to view this content. You can update your cookies preferences any time using privacy manager. Steve Harmison, who has studied the methods of many fast bowlers and was one himself, can think of few who generated the sort of pace Bumrah finds from a similarly short sprint. He would put Simon Jones in this bracket, and also Wood before he changed to a longer run-up in the winter of 2018-19. As was the case with Jones, and Wood when he was using a shorter run, Bumrah has found himself vulnerable to injury, and after recent back problems it has already been determined that he will almost certainly play a maximum of three Tests in this series. On the evidence so far, England will fancy their chances in the two matches he misses — which may be the third and fifth Tests, at Lord's and the Oval, as they come hard on the heels of the second and fourth games. Harmison fears Bumrah may be prevented from racking up the stupendous wicket hauls of others because of the demands his action makes on his body, and the fact he is a multi-format bowler. As a result, he may not be remembered in conversations about the greatest of all time. Anyone prepared to look beyond the wickets column, though, will find plenty of evidence of his brilliance. No bowler with 200 Test wickets to their name has a lower average than Bumrah's 19.33 and only Kagiso Rabada has a better strike rate than his 41.8 balls per wicket. He is getting better, too. In his past 20 Tests dating back to early 2022, he has taken 103 wickets at an average of just 15.27. Bowlers in the modern game simply do not accrue figures like that. When Bumrah bowled Josh Tongue to claim his fifth wicket, he was mobbed by team-mates who appreciated his lion-hearted efforts and outrageous skill. He was handed the ball, wrapped it up safely in his cap and jumper and walked off smiling broadly. He should have had his five-for much earlier, but he got there in the end.